Adele, Thanks for the Cultural Appreciation

I could’ve used it as a kid when I was shamed for my Caribbean roots.

Photo: Adele/Instagram

I recently wrote two articles on cultural appropriation for Reader’s Digest, and when a friend and former colleague in Australia shared one on Facebook, someone tried to whitesplain cultural appropriation in a comment under it. That was annoying, but I was more frustrated because her defensiveness made it clear she didn’t bother to read my article before pontificating aimlessly about the big C.

This Is Exactly What Cultural Appropriation Means

I wrote a response about a half dozen paragraphs more succinct than hers and let it go. But thoughts of cultural appropriation are swirling in my head again, thanks to the controversy over the bantu knots and Jamaican flag bikini top Adele wore in an August 30 Instagram post marking the cancelled-because-of-the-pandemic Notting Hill Festival, an annual celebration of the Caribbean culture that permeates London.

My husband, who is White and Australian, was the first person to show me the Adele photo, and as he did, he asked if I thought it was cultural…